Flower / Child

Let me start off by saying how much I love this dress! Look at its quintessential hippie print, and its Unfashionista-approved array of colors! The mix of earth tones and pastels is weird, but it works, and it provides a versatile backdrop for accessorizing in almost any hue!

This dress was a hand-me-down, and its life with me got off to a rocky start when I discovered the straps gaped in a most bizarre fashion right over my chest. Although I'd never dealt with a problem like this before, it was actually easy to fix with just a simple horizontal dart.

Left: Weirdly gaping shoulder strap at 3:00. Right, no gape! (reversed because the first picture was taken in a mirror)

From thence, it was on to endless flower-power fun!

I wore this dress once in the summer, pairing it with a perfectly coordinated set of light green sandals. I didn't think I'd have a chance to wear it again, but the weather has been merciful and graced us with another October day in the 80's! Even though the highs are delightful, it's still chilly in the mornings (and in our basement office), so I topped the outfit with a brown sweater.

In a reflection of the colorful patterns on the dress, I wore a silver medallion with pastel gemstones.

The most exciting part of the outfit is, as is often the case, the shoes. Today I'm wearing some lavender and white platform oxfords that I got last spring, thinking pastel purple would be a great addition to my shoe collection. As is often the case, it wasn't. Nothing seemed to go with them! When spring waned and summer arrived, I decided to shelve them until fall, so that I'd have something new and cheery to wear when the weather turned depressing. Well, the weather is not depressing, but fall is here, and I'm struggling to find stuff to wear with my summer clothes, so why not these? This dress is one of the only things I've found in my wardrobe that doesn't outright clash with the shoes.

However, I found that even though the colors work together, the styles don't. The shoes have a childlike, prissy vibe, while the dress is a little more bold and daring. The whole day, I felt like I was one person on top, and a different person from the knees down. I also didn't like the way my ankles looked sticking out of the shoes...but I also didn't like the way they looked with anklet socks! I just can't seem to win with these shoes!

While the dress and shoe combo may have been less than stellar, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love this dress!